“Time has come today,” barks the first trailer for the latest movie from Spike Lee, “Da 5 Bloods,” a war film that tells the story of the “soul brothers” who fought in the Vietnam War.
“Da 5 Bloods” is Lee’s follow-up to his Oscar-winning film “BlackKklansman,” and this first look, all scored to the Chambers Brothers song “Time Has Come Today,” has the energy, color and political spark of any Spike Lee joint.
It’s an original story about how four African American veterans return to Vietnam in search of their fallen squad leader’s remains, played by Chadwick Boseman, as well as a chest full of buried gold treasure left there during the war. But along the way they battle the forces of man and nature and confront the lasting ravages of “the immorality of the Vietnam War.”
“We’ve been dying for this country from the very beginning,” Boseman says in the trailer. “We give this gold, to our people.”
Delroy Lindo, Clarke Peters, Norm Lewis and Isiah Whitlock Jr. play the four Vietnam vets who team up with their squad leader’s son (“The Last Black Man in San Francisco” breakout Jonathan Majors), while Boseman appears in flashbacks to the war. Lee has also assembled an impressive supporting cast that includes Mélanie Thierry, Paul Walter Hauser, Jasper Pääkkönen, Johnny Trí Nguyen, Van Veronica Ngo with Jean Reno.
Lee is directing the film from a screenplay written by him and collaborator Kevin Willmott, based on an original screenplay by Danny Bilson and Paul De Meo and a rewrite by Matthew Billingsly.
“Da 5 Bloods” drops on Netflix on June 12. Check out the first trailer for the film above.